Hess Marketing BlogThink It Up!

With over 500 million users, Facebook has become an ideal medium to create a Redwood-sized network. The question is, where do I start? The first part is a no brainer—create a Facebook page for your firm. Unfortunately, the next component cannot be taken care of with the click of your mouse. Fans will not inaugurate the joining and liking of your page, you’re going to have to work at it–but this is why we’re here for you.

Have you ever chewed gum until it loses its flavor, then offered it to a friend? Yes to the former, but never the latter. Well, companies looking to organically gain fans must concoct both an everlasting and reusable “gum” that will keep their fans pleased, as well as permit them to share their positive thoughts about the firm. Regrettably, many firms fail to sustain their flavor, causing their Facebook marketing plan to fold. Here are the 9 crucial tips and tricks to organically create an everlasting tang that will keep your old fans chewing and your new fans excited to start.

To organically gain fans:

1. Reaffirm your business’s information on the fan page. Facebook’s popularity has grown so significantly that fan pages are no longer private, thus Google’s web crawler now collects this information and deems it important for its search results. i.e. when the number one most visited website since 2007 deems the information important, it is in fact, important!
2. Join Facebook groups of similar interest to your firm. Then, review the “members list” of the group and invite those who fit the profile of a potential customer to be a fan of your page.
3. Use video! Develop a video and post it on your blog, website and Facebook page. At the close of the video be sure to invite the viewer to become a fan of the firm–this call to action is extremely powerful, without the invitation to become a fan, the video will be far less effective. Also, be sure to have the video readily available for sharing.
4. Wherever you have a digital presence, promote your Facebook page. Provide links to your Facebook page from all of your social media accounts, including twitter, blogs and your website. If you have email campaigns, send invitations to all your targets, soliciting them to join your Facebook page.  Furthermore, update your email’s signature to include a line with a link to your Facebook page.
5. Embed widgets on your website and blog. The new “like” button is Facebook’s social plugin, if clicked; the viewer will automatically become a fan.
6. Use the @ tag to link your profile to the firms page. All you need to do is type, @(your firms name). This will provide a link directly to your firm’s page.

To help maintain:

1. Engage your clients. Always respond to your client’s comments and posts. When doing so, make sure to be human. When you personalize your responses an aura of comfort is created, along with a personality for the company. Additionally, personal responses create notifications on the fan’s personal page, (which can be seen by all of their friends) producing a potential snowball effect of interested users.
2. Negative feedback is vital for success.  The negative information allows your company to fix its flaws and it gives you the opportunity to provide personalized customer service. This is how brand ambassadors are created. Don’t forget, DO NOT delete the negative comments until you have contacted the disgruntled clients.
3. Reward your fans. In order to help keep your fans loyal and excited, provide them with deals and offers that can only be obtained if they are part of the exclusive group. Not only will this help solidify an existing relationship, this can help foster new bonds with potential clients looking for deals.

Tags: facebook, fans, free, gain, maintain, no cost, optimization, organically, pages, social media

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010 at 12:21 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.